Jubilee Hills gangrape: Accused confesses to crime

Hyderabad: On the first day of questioning the Jubilee Hills gangrape accused, the police said that details revealed by Sadudin Malik strengthened the possibility that the crime may have been pre-planned. Besides, the Jubilee Hills police were also granted custody of three of the five minors booked in the case for five days, starting Friday.

The questioning of Malik went on for six hours on Thursday, the police said, adding that several new details pertaining to the crime came to light. The prime accused in the case is reportedly cooperating with the police and is said to have confessed to the crime during the first day of his questioning on Thursday.

Revealing further details, the police said that the son of the minority board chairman was the first to approach the victim. According to sources, Malik came in touch with the rest of the accused, all juveniles, around two months ago.

“A driver took Malik, along with the son of the chairman of a minority board, to Amnesia pub on May 28. It was the chairman's son who first approached the victim in the pub and Malik joined him. The rest of the gang was introduced to her outside the pub, where they offered to drop her home,” a source said.

Further, it was revealed that the victim's glasses and mobile phone were taken by the accused, who told her that they would return them to her once she gets inside the car.

Police officials said they will be corroborating the version of events shared by the victim in her second statement to the police with the details revealed by the accused, as well as cross-checking the same with call data records and CCTV footage acquired during the course of the investigation.

The police said they will start questioning the juveniles on Friday, while Malik would also be questioned for a second consecutive day.

However, the police officials have to visit the juvenile home at Saidabad in plainclothes to record their statements, in the presence of their lawyers. The minors will not be brought to the police station.

Officials investigating the case said that they would be sending all six of them to the forensic science lab, to collect their DNA and fingerprints.

Meanwhile, Telangana IT minister K.T. Rama Rao welcomed the Telangana police's reported move to file an appeal with the Juvenile Board, seeking exemption for the trial of the juveniles apprehended in the gangrape case as adults.

“If you are adult enough to commit a crime as heinous as rape, one must also be punished as an adult and not as a juvenile," (sic) he tweeted.

It has been revealed that the city police are proposing to file an appeal with the JJB soon.

Malik and the four juveniles were allegedly involved in the gangrape of a minor girl inside a car in Jubilee Hills on May 28. The fifth juvenile has been booked for outraging the modesty of the victim and other sections of the PoCSO Act.

All six of them were also booked under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act on charges of circulating the videos of the incident, which they shot on their mobile phones.